Professional
I'm a senior studying Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design on the Pre-Medical track and am looking for a full time job in product design.
I have had extensive training in the field of biology and medicine, design and communication, and in managing teams and collaborating with people.
leadership
The Technique, Newspaper
Editor-in-Chief
June 2015 - present, Atlanta, GA
The Technique is Georgia Tech's student-run newspaper, publishing on a weekly basis during the academic year. As Features Editor I managed a staff of around eight students, developing them as writers and reporters. I generated and delegated content weekly, as well as conducted interviews, formatted the layout of the paper in InDesign, and wrote and published articles. My role also included writing editorials a few times per semester, which can be found at www.nique.net/author/samira-bandaru.
I began writing for the Technique as soon as I entered college. Coming from a liberal arts background, I felt strongly about maintaining my passion for writing, which soon blossomed into a passion for not only writing, but managing and developing my writers, designing the weekly layouts of the Life Section, and bringing campus news and student opinions to Tech every week.
I believe strongly in the importance of strong communication skills as it is crucial in any field. Therefore, it is my goal to develop my writers to become honest and clear communicators.
I am the elected Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper and have taken on a variety of other responsibilities in addition to managing a staff of over twenty students. Some of these responsibilities include:
• Treasurer of the Board of Student Publications. My role is to secure funding from the Student Government Association for not only the Technique, but also the 5 other publications within Student Media.
• Served as the student representative on the Search Committee for the Vice President of Institute Communications at Georgia Tech.
• Served on the Student Center Architects Committee for Georgia Tech’s new student center.
Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
Middle School Outreach Chair
August 2014 - May 2015, Atlanta, GA
As an advocate for women in STEM, it was important to make my mark by doing what I could to encourage young women to pursue careers in STEM fields, or at the very least be aware that STEM careers are a feasible option for anyone who is interested. As part of SWE, I organized and facilitated activities geared towards motivating middle school girls to pursue careers in STEM fields from experiments, to demos, to meet-a-female-engineer events.
National Academy of Engineering.
Judge
March - September 2014, Washington DC.
After winning an essay contest for the National Academy on Engineering for my essay on Artificial Hearts, I was invited to serve on the judges committee to judge finalist' video entries for the Engineering For You video contest.
Yale University, Department of Physics.
Outreach Activity Leader
2010-2014, New Haven, CT
I have had amazing women role models in STEM fields throughout my childhood and wanted to give back as soon as possible by becoming an activity leader for a local outreach program called Girls Science Investigations. During this program, I led laboratory demonstrations and activities to motivate middle school girls to pursue careers in STEM fields.
Experience
MIT Design Lab
Project Assistant
July 2018 - August 2018
Performed ethnographic and market trend research on the millennial demographic in order to collect data for a smart home based product.
Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics Laboratory
Undergraduate Researcher
May 2017 - December 2017
Using software to simulate blood pressure and flow, I completed surgical planning cases using the Fontan Procedure to provide solutions to abnormalities in the heart. My day-to-day work included analyzing MRIs of young patients with heart defects, preparing three-dimensional models as solutions to these defects and running simulations on those models to find the optimal model to send back to the surgeons.
Yale University School of Medicine
Research Assistant
2011 - 2014, New Haven, CT
I began doing research in Dr. Stephen Waxman's laboratory in the field of Neuroscience and Morphometric studies. During this time I digitally reconstructed motor neurons and examined correlations between dendritic spine remodeling and malfunctions in the nervous system. My publications are listed below:
Bandaru S, Samad OA, Zhao P, Waxman SG, Tan AM. Dendritic spine dysplasia contributes to spasticity after spinal cord injury. Journal of Neurophysiology, 2014.
Tan AM, Samad OA, Liu S, Bandaru S, Zhao P, Waxman SG. A mechanism for burn injury-induced neuropathic pain: Dendritic spine remodeling in the spinothalamic pathway. Experimental Neurology, volume 248, 509-519, 2013.
Tan AM, Bandaru S, Zhao P, Waxman SG. Dendritic spine remodeling after SCI: a motor engram for spasticity. Society for Neuroscience 2013. Abstract 629.29.
Tan AM, Bandaru S, Samad OA, Zhao P, Waxman SG. Dendritic spine dysgenesis occurs in spinal motor circuits after spinal cord injury. Society for Neuroscience 2012. Abstract 556.08.